1. Education and Dreams
This is presented through Burns, “Cut a chrysalis open, and you will find a rotting caterpillar. What you will never find is that mythical creature, half caterpillar, half butterfly…Burns was young, after all…Though it was difficult to see him as an undergraduate. He had missed his chance of being ordinary” (page 184) The imagery of chrysalis, caterpillar and butterfly link to the idea of the barrier the war has created, insisted youngsters to join the war, killed one another. It degenerates the youth, ruins their educating life to create peace. Therefore, dreams and ambitions have no stands in the soldiers (another emotional difficulty to overcome)
The war however seems to bring in a positive connotation towards women.
“That would help to account for the greater prevalence of anxiety neuroses and hysterical disorders of women in peacetime…Any explanation of war neurosis must account for the fact that this apparently intensely masculine life of war and danger and hardship produced in men the same disorders that women suffered from in peace” (page 222). This quotation shows a contradiction between women and men. The war allowed women to actually work helpfully while during peace, the women’s lives were too cliché that neurosis occurred to them. This contrasting idea makes the readers think about what changes would take place in women status in the society after the war, perhaps, emancipating.
Another small theme which I find is quoted through Sarah's perspective. Pat Barker barely directs this theme later in the novel.
The Government
This is presented through the time when Sarah accompanied her friend, Madge, to visit Madge’s fiancé. She got lost and found injured soldiers. Page 160, as described “Figures that were no longer the size and shape of adult men. Trouser legs sewn short; empty sleeves pinned to jacked. One man had lost all his limbs…They stared at her…blank stare…If she’d managed to smile, to look normal, it might have been better. But no, she thought, there was nothing she could have done that would have made it better. Simply by being there…:a pretty girl, she had made everything worse”. Sarah’s shocked reaction highlights the fact that the society hid the injured soldiers and still encouraged the new generation to join the army, they dared not to display the negativeness and cruelty the war punished. Selfishness and immorality are emphasised. The depiction hides no euphemism & disgust, it also conveys sympathy and provokes anger towards the government & their lies.
